Untitled, by Syed Hassan Pasha. Image courtesy of the artist.
Old words translate
into new words
like stars that fit
into his night brain
each word is a star
lighting the new world
its light hanging
in the mind muddled
by murky depths
that swallowed
some of him
in its angry mouth
he is a blue child
who came out of the sea
in an orange dream
he looks around for ghosts
that followed him
through hell fire and deluge
he translates the moon
Qamar – the drowned face
hanging in the sky
he mutters prayers
for his helplessness
his sin of survival
he has a dark face
like the moon
the one he hides.
~ Usha Kishore
Usha Kishore is an Indian born British poet resident on the Isle of Man, where she teaches English at the Queen Elizabeth II High School. Her poetry has been featured in international magazines including Aesthetica, The Frogmore Papers, Index on Censorship, The Stinging Fly, Poetry Salzburg Review, Bare Fiction Magazine, The Missing Slate and Asia Literary Review and anthologised by Macmillan, Hodder Wayland and Oxford University Press. Her work won the Exiled Writers Ink Poetry Competition in 2014 and the Pre-Raphaelite Poetry Prize in 2013. Her third poetry collection is scheduled for Autumn 2017 from Eyewear Publishing, London.
